thoughts and stories by Steve Elkins

Doctor’s Report and Other Thoughts

This afternoon, I had a doctor’s appointment to get my results from my last CT scan. The doctor was pleased with my progress. The CT scan showed the size of the tumors was unchanged. While I would like to have had smaller sizes, the doctor was pleased that they had not grown. In this case, staying the same is progress.

We talked about changing my prescription from Lovenox injections, which I had to give myself two shots daily that left me bruised and lumpy, to a pill called Xarelto. I talked to our pharmacist and she gave me some information about it and said it would probably be cheaper than the Lovenox. On my check-out paper it says they have ordered the Xarelto. I will check tomorrow to see if the word “ordered” means they called in a prescription to Walgreen’s or something else. I thought they might be getting it from Amazon.com or Sears. Have any of you used this drug before?

Last night’s storm was something wasn’t it? I was watching the weather for thirty minutes or so before time to go to church. They were saying nothing bad below I-40; it was tracking East, Northeast. I went to the garage and started to back the van out, when my new neighbors from across the street called for me over to ask if we were going to have a tornado. I could tell she was concerned and her teenage daughter seemed really nervous. As we looked at the swirling clouds and the gusting wind was blowing my hair, I told her about what the weathermen told us. Feeling like a good neighbor by claiming the spirit of the timid, I went to the garage and started to back out. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw the wind blowing the rain horizontally and hail beginning to fall. The “ever calm” David Payne was on the radio saying there was a tornado on the ground in Moore. Payne was so excited I thought he had injected his arm with some illegal drug and was about to pass out from excitement. The helicopter pilot was also jacked up and saying “David, there’s another one!!!” I thought to myself, “What happened?” Less than ten minutes after I turned the television off, the weather streaked from I-40 to Moore and now there were tornadoes! In my media blackout time zone, did they pick up what was going on or was it a surprise? I am grateful no one was killed there and after reading the experiences of our church family on Facebook, no one in our church family was injured.

It reminded me of when Terrie and I were first married. Having spent most of my youth on the West Coast, I had not been exposed to the threat of tornadoes. I did see one when we lived in Colorado and one that went through Wichita Falls, TX when my dad was on a job there. I knew they were dangerous but I was emotionally neutral about them.

Terrie was raised here in Oklahoma. She said her mother; Pat would get very frightened by bad weather. There was more than one time, Pat would pull a mattress off of the bed and cover Paula, Terrie and herself with the mattress until the storm passed. Paul, Terrie’s father, did not get excited, but remained very calm. He would often spend time in his garage working on his projects. He had a man cave before they were cool. It was called a garage. Their house, in Shawnee, did not have an inside door that connected the house to the garage. They would have to go outside to get into the garage. Terrie said when Paul was in the garage and storms would come, Pat would bang her fist on the connecting wall and yell “Paul you get in here!”

Our first apartment was in the Colonial Apartments located on North Broadway in Moore. We didn’t live there very long but it was what we could afford at the time. The tornado sirens went off late one afternoon. Terrie became very nervous. I think she thought I should pull the mattress off the bed and wait it out. I didn’t do that. Instead I open the front door, wide open, and went outside to see what the excitement was all about. I think that was first time I realized that I was responsible for the safety of my bride. Apparently the storm took the roof off of a restaurant and what seemed like hundreds of Styrofoam cups were being blown through the air like white birds flying amass.

Over the forty years of being together, Terrie’s fear of bad weather has improved a lot. She still gets nervous, but not crazy nervous. If I’m near, she does well. On May 2o, 2013, I was in Starksville, MS. Terrie was in school when the tornado happened. She had her electric scooter at school and she guided her class, like ducklings, to the safe room with the rest of the school. Everyone was protected there. I was seven hundred and fifty miles away and I was very concerned and I prayed. Some people would say, “All I could do was pray.” I realized it didn’t matter if I was seven hundred and fifty miles away or right next to her, my prayer was being answered by the one that is always with her. Isn’t it good to know that from wherever we are on the planet, we can call out to our God and know He has it already in His hands. We can trust Him with our life and those we love.

Pray for those affected by the tornadoes yesterday. May the Lord be glorified through His people, showing His kindness to those around them who are in need.

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2 thoughts on “Doctor’s Report and Other Thoughts”

So glad about your doctor visit today. Progress….YEA!
I spoke to God many times last night. Words like ” where should I go?” “What should I do?” “Protect me, please.” “I hate this!” He showed me a rainbow when the sky was so dark and the rain was pelting my car. The first thing I did when I got in my warm, dry house was lay down on the floor, face in the carpet, hands straight out and cry “Thank you, thank you, Jesus.” Then I prayed for those who had damage to their homes, who were involved in wrecks, who couldn’t get to shelter, who were in shelters, who were separated from their family. Finally got up, wiped my ugly-cry face and started answering calls and texts from family and friends checking on me. What a blessing! I have missed LD every day since March 2012 but never as much as I did yesterday. Would have been nice to see his smiling face when I got in my house; prayer time on the floor was the next best thing!

Sis, I am so glad that the Lord answered our prayers by protecting you. Riding out a storm at Sonic is not the best place to be (no car hop service during tornadoes, thank you!) but it was where you were supposed to stop. It was better than a block south at the Conoco station. Your questions were what I would have asked in your situation. I think LD would be proud of your strength during the storm. Having someone beside us is comforting and helps fortify us, but we realize the Lord’s hand of protection is our real security. Prostrate praying can be very intense and restorative to our spirit.and I too, say “Thank you, thank you, Jesus.”